Cuba's Fidel Castro announces retirement - 19 Feb 08

Cuba's president Fidel Castro has stepped down from office. The iconic revolutionary leader has been battling poor health for some time and had already handed over day to day control of the country to his brother Raul. Al Jazeera's Owen Fay takes a look at his 49 years in power.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• fidel
• castro
• cuba
• america
• raul
• al
• jazeera
• aljazeera
• owen
• fay

[WINGGULLSEAGULL]

When our puppet dictators don't comply, what do we do ? We kill them or try to. Let's see, how many assassination attempts has there been on Castro? At least 8, he has survived a counter-revolutionary attack, the missile crisis, the fall of the Soviets, embargos, that's amazing, Castro has succeeded in making a monkey out of virtually every US President. You got to hand it to Castro & Che for being the 2 bravest men of the 20 century, those guys were true rebels that lived dangerously.

[elsamuraiguapo]

It's the same with all communist countries. They've all been placed on embargos, which leaves them with no choice but to accept poverty, or sell their soul to capitalism.

[Soulflytribe04]

@rednemesis88 Buy a ticket plane and see what these people are doing around here. You have no idea of what the fuck you are talking about.

[rednemesis88]

• To those of you who have no side on Cuba; If you are a freedom loving person then you may read all the lies about Cuba and believed them. I would ask that you please don't. I have visited the Island several times. There I found what the nature of freedom is: You can't have the freedom "to" if you don't have the freedom "from". You want to do whatever, say whatever, and explore whatever you want. But it's hard to do that if you're not free from hunger, disease, injury and ignorance (continued.

[rednemesis88]

• ...Thats is one of the goals of socialism. To take the value created by industries in any given nation and put to collective use for all in said same nation such as food rationing, free medical care, and free schools (at all levels). For if a person is homeless, hungry, injured, contracted pneumonia, and is uneducated then what good is the freedom "to"? This is exactly what Cuba is trying to achieve. The problem is the embargo. It's putting the building of socialism through a hindered pace.

[rednemesis88]

Fidel is not a dictator. Dictators don't teach the poor literacy. Dictators don't arm the people from the threat of invasion. Dictators don't provide free medical care. Dictators don't ration the food products among the people. Dictators don't cut off diplomatic ties with Israel over the mistreatment of Palestinians. Dictators don't organize teams of doctors to go and provide free medical care to the poor in third world countries. If Castro is a Dictator then he is the strangest one there is.

[rednemesis88]

@Soulflytribe04 How many countries has the US invaded in the last 100 years? Who was the first nation to use the atomic bomb? Which government has controlling interest in the IMF? What was the ratio of dead American and Vietcong soldiers in that 10 year war? I do not politically agree with FARC, they have turned into thugs which is something no real genuine socialist gurilla group should become. Hugo Chaves's brand of socialism is not proleterian enough but surely he's no Stalin.

[greger2045]

I'm just curious, can you find homeless people in Cuba?

[nepalihercules]

@PureSoapCleans lol you deluded fool. you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Jeanisimo]

pinochet was the dictator of Chile, not Argentina

[TheRNP93]

sad to hear fidel step down then as president and today as general secretary.

VIVA FIDEL

VIVA COMMUNISM